House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is continuing to blame the Democrat government shutdown on Republicans, despite the fact that — again — Republicans offered a clean continuing resolution (CR) that Democrats have rejected a dozen times.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Jeffries continued to blame the government shutdown on Republicans, claiming that Democrats are ready to “negotiate a bipartisan agreement to reopen the government so we can pay our hardworking federal employees.”
Again he made no mention of the fact that Democrats are rejecting a clean, 24-page extension that they have supported several times in the past.
He then brought up the healthcare crisis and asserted it is completely Republicans’ fault, telling reporters “the need to decisively address the Republican healthcare crisis is crushing people all across the country.” He also claimed that the GOP has “zero interest in actually addressing this issue.”
However, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has explained time and time again that the healthcare crisis and government shutdown are two separate issues.
“They’re two totally separate things. The clean continuing resolution would simply keep the lights on so that the members in the House and Senate can have those debates on healthcare. We were always planning it. We have lots of ideas on the table on how to fix it, but we don’t yet have consensus on it because it’s very complicated,” Johnson said. “We have time to do it.”
When asked if there is a point where Democrats will have to accept that they must reopen the government to get stuff done, Jeffries deflected, asserting that Republicans shut it down, accusing them of steamrolling country and “jamming their right wing ideology down the throat of the American people.”
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Meanwhile, Johnson specifically called out Democrats for blaming them for the healthcare crisis that Democrats created in the first place.
“In their desperation now, they’re trying their very best to somehow blame Republicans for the forthcoming healthcare crisis that they themselves created by way of — just very quick review for the record, because they’re trying to obscure this as well,” Johnson said this week:
Let’s remember the true origins of the boondoggle that is American health care. Under Obamacare, Democrats wrote that bill. They passed it into law without a single Republican vote. During the COVID pandemic, Democrats created temporary Obamacare credits, again without a single Republican vote. Democrats then voted to extend those credits. They set the expiration date on them, and then when they held the majority in the Senate, it was Democrats who chose not to extend those credits beyond this year. Now, as we approach their own self-imposed expiration date, now they are breathlessly insisting to you and on all the interviews that somehow it’s a Republican crisis.
“Give me a break,” Johnson added. “The facts are the facts. We are up here saying, sharing the simple fact and truth. As John Adams said, facts are stubborn things.”
He continued, “Chuck Schumer has been suggesting that four leaders should go into a smoke filled back room like they used to do in the old days, and create this solution.”
“It’s not a possible thing to do whenever appropriate. It’s not possible to put on a continuing resolution, because it’s such a complex issue,” Johnson said of the healthcare crisis, explaining it needs “deep thought and deliberation.”
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